Content available on the World Wide Web offers an enormous amount of information and reference that users may find valuable. Once located, a common concern associated with information of value or interest is how to easily re-locate the information at a later time. Most individuals use browsers to search for content on the World Wide Web, and browsers often include a bookmark feature, which creates and saves a label associated with a uniform resource locator (URL) of the content. A URL has a protocol identifier (e.g. “http”), a resource name, sometimes referred to as a domain of the URL (e.g. www.example.com), and a context root, which includes the remaining characters of the URL excluding the domain, or resource name (e.g. /myfolder/myfile.pdf).
Browser users tend to “over bookmark”, generating large lists of brief labels of content, which are often poorly organized, if at all. Over bookmarking makes it very difficult for a user to re-locate content previously found and saved. Many modern browsers, such as Google Chrome (Chrome is a registered trademark of Google Inc.) in the U.S. and may be subject to trademark rights in various jurisdictions throughout the world and are used here only in reference to the products or services properly denominated by the marks to the extent that such trademark rights may exist), include type-ahead techniques that facilitate users in locating content and provide an impression to users that not all content of value or interest needs to be bookmarked. However, the type-ahead-URL-entry mechanism does assume that users know all or part of a URL they wish to access, and therefore does not entirely replace a need for bookmarking.
Another related bookmarking issue exists among developers. While developing an application, activity typically shifts among multiple contexts, or environments. An environment for software development activity includes one or more computing systems on which a software application, or an application component, is written, updated, compiled, edited, unit tested, integration tested, debugged, usability tested, staged, and launched for production use. Some or all of such activities may be performed within a different context, or environment.
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that includes access to comprehensive tools and resources for software development. For example, an integrated development environment may include, or provide access to a code editor, build automation, a compiler, a debugger, a built-in web browser, as well as other tools and features, and a graphical user interface enabling access and use of the resources of the environment.
Test environments may include local unit testing, integration testing in which multiple “units” of developed code are integrated and tested for function and interoperability, usability testing of graphical user interfaces, and performance of specific test cases. Staging is a pre-production environment for final testing prior to deploying to production and may be constructed to duplicate the computing system components and conditions that the application may encounter when launched in a production environment. Staging environments are often used to test performance and capacity of the application, as well as testing all installation, configuration, and migration procedures and scripts, used to enable the installation of the software application.
A production environment includes the computing systems and support in which the new software application or version release is made available to general user access, or the environment in which the software application is “launched”. For example, a series of environments used by software/web application developers may include a local test environment, a team test environment, a staging environment, and a production environment.
Software development-related environments are only one example of multiple environments users may encounter. Other examples in which users may experience multiple environments may include simultaneously operating different versions or editions of the same program, educational references for various levels of instructions, such as elementary, middle school, and high school levels, multiple tenants of a service providers hosting services for multiple distinct businesses, business applications hosted in different locations, and web content and services associated with enterprise businesses. In some enterprise businesses, an organization might support an internal zone for employees of the enterprise business, and also support an external zone for clients, partners, and other associates. Each zone is an environment, and currently, separate bookmarks may be established by users of content or service of each environment.